Of the many details emerging today related to the search of the home and garage of Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook, the description of apparent bomb components was among the most intriguing.  The list of items seized by investigators and left behind at the apartment, and another law enforcement document reviewed by The New York Times, both mention Christmas tree lights or, in one reference, “miniature Christmas tree lamps.” 

That reference reverberates among bomb disposal techs who track developments in improvised explosive devices, because the combination of the small bombs made from pipe elbows (confiscated immediately after the mass shooting yesterday in San Bernardino) and the reference to the Christmas tree lights as components, could be read as a direct echo from a recent issue of Inspire, al Qaeda’s English-language magazine. 

Inspire’s issue number 14, posted this September, included a step-by-step tutorial offering an update on the familiar pipe-bomb concept. The leading image for the article, entitled “Designing a Timed Hand Grenade,” is shown above.  The pages that followed, partial excerpt below, included detailed guidance in how to repurpose a small Christmas tree lamp by converting it to an electrically-powered igniter with a brief delay.  (The article immediately followed another entitled “Assassination at a Workplace.”)

How well might the AQ igniter system work?  There is at least one clear answer to that, based on data. But we won’t share it. The points here are not about efficacy of one particular improvised system or another, but how about bomb-manufacturing knowledge can move, and some of the potential sources for this proliferation. 

So far the FBI has said that one of the perpetrators had sworn allegiance to the so-called Islamic State. But details in law-enforcement documents, public and not yet public, suggest that the couple behind the rampage in San Bernardino may also have gleaned specific technical instruction from a very recent issue of the prominent Qaeda magazine.  There are grounds for thought about what that might mean.

More, on the NYT.

Michael Moore of the Landmines in Africa blog (and founder of the Campaign Against Red Mercury) visits with Jeffrey Lewis, the Arms Control Wonk. 

A discussion about the lethal consequences of the persistent hype surrounding a supposedly valuable substance that – let’s say it again – does not exist. 

Questions of origins, moral responsibility and the cruelty of the myth upon desperately poor people who search for the substance inside landmines and mortar bombs. “Why couldn’t the myth have been that you find it dildos instead of in landmines that blowup and kill you?”

Listen to the podcast here.

Read The Doomsday Scam here.

Illustration by Boris Pelcer.

Since last week, when The New York Times Magazine posted the on-line version of The Doomsday Scam, an article about the enduring red-mercury-as-W.M.D. meme, several peers from varied beats and news organizations have contacted me about their own encounters over the years with red-mercury scams.  One of the exchanges is worth distilling and sharing here, as it included a set of photographs that can be added to the red-mercury record.

Have a look of the pix below, which were shared (with permission to post) by Jennifer Janisch, an investigative reporter for CBS News.

These pretend to show the very dangerous (and, no need for spoiler alert) utterly fictional substance known as red mercury.  Perhaps this is what red mercury would look like if distributed by a maker of bowling tournament trophies. But what is interesting here is not the laugh. It’s the text on the container. If you look closely, you’ll see some of it appears lifted from an equally unconvincing vessel of red mercury purportedly confiscated during a HAZMAT operation in  2004 in a bunker in Iraq. (cf, below.)

Here is how Ms. Janisch (thank you for sharing) said the upper two images came to her possession this summer, while she was investigating antiquities trafficking in the region.

These images were sent to me in August via Whatsapp by a Syrian smuggler who said he was based in Mersin, Turkey. I had contacted him through a source as I was investigating the illegal trade of Syrian and Iraqi antiquities. He sent me a few photos of artifacts - many of which were fake, according to experts who reviewed them - and he also sent me these photos of red mercury.

Remember: Red mercury is a hoax, and in certain circumstances the pursuit of it (as in southern Africa, where according to local urban legend it can be found within landmines and other conventional ordnance items) can be fatal. Please feel free to recirculate word of the scam, and the upper two images, to help spread awareness about the perils of a persistent myth.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATION

By Boris Pelcer, for The New York Times Magazine.